Locals rally behind Conservation Corps

The governor's suggested dismantling of the California Conservation Corps has drawn out supporters to vouch for its preservation -- but the administration is holding that it's just too expensive.

The corps is known for its trail building, wildfire suppression support and efforts to rehabilitate damaged salmon habitat. It's often seen as a key nudge for kids teetering between trouble and productivity.

But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sees the CCC's cost to the state's general fund as too high to justify with a projected $42 billion deficit.

Those who have worked with the CCCs on the North Coast, however, are shocked at the proposal and worried that the workforce couldn't be replaced.

The move would be "disastrous" and "foolish," said Chris Turner, Redwood Community Action Agency Natural Resources Service project coordinator. A former CCC member, Turner said that the young people who work so hard at their tasks would be the hardest hit. Programs and projects that use the CCC would be terribly undercut by such a decision, he said.

"It would be a sad day in California state history," Turner said.

The corps hires young adults 18 to 25 years old, and was modeled after Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps. The state funds the corps to the tune of $34 million a year; the corps raises another $24 million. That breaks down to about $68,000 a year for each of the 1,300 corps members when administration of the program is considered, said Sandy Cooney, spokesman for the state Natural Resources Agency.

"For a workforce, that's a pretty expensive operation," Cooney said.

Compare the costs to that of a park ranger, which starts at about $43,000 a year, Cooney said, not including benefits. Cooney also said that the corps was initially conceived to become self-sufficient over time -- which it has not been able to do -- and it has also been focusing less on the education and training elements of its mission.

The nonprofit CCC Foundation challenges that perception. It holds that all CCC members advance their education during their stint, and that 4,000 of them worked to complete their high school diplomas in the past three years.

Is the 33-year-old CCC replaceable? Local Red Cross Director of Community Education and Development Linda Nellist said the Red Cross trains CCC members in disaster preparedness and first aid.

She said the corps is a key part of the group of response agencies available during emergencies. But Nellist said CCC members are also important individually. A loss of so many trained individuals would have a dramatic effect on the community, she said.

"These folks aren't just sitting in an office and having their hours and days cut," Nellist said. "They're out in the community actively working as a group, and as good Samaritans."

The Schwarzenegger administration has proposed significantly increasing funding to some locally run corps programs, about 12 of them scattered in cities around the state, which could put them out of range of many rural areas.

Asked if he would be able to replace the available labor pool if the CCC were to be cut, Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services Program Coordinator Dan Larkin said he didn't know. There are CCC programs based out of Fortuna and McKinleyville.

"I'm not hopeful, because we're pretty limited up here in what we have available," Larkin said. "Any time you have an asset in place versus one a long ways away, it's much easier to access the local one when you need it."

The corps has developed a reputation for doing extremely hard work in terrible conditions -- reflected in its motto, "Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions, and more." Finding a die-hard workforce willing and able to, say, manually yank invasive European beach grass from sand dunes, or hike in daily to bust rock to make trails, wouldn't be easy, said U.S. Bureau of Land Management Arcata Field Manager Lynda Roush. The CCC is a source of maintenance that the agency doesn't have, she said.

"We would never be able to afford that kind of labor force," Roush said. "For us on the North Coast, that would be a significant loss and we would have to regroup."